There no longer are any words left to explain what is going on in this centrally planned market (technically "enantiomeric" may be a word, but nobody would get it). It is sheer and utter bipolar insanity, when the S&P can hit multi-year highs even as the 10 year drops below 1.90%, something which in the pre-New Normal would be completely impossible. We wish luck to anyone "trading" a market (read trading alongside Central Bank X, with momentum escalated courtesy of Algo Y, regulated by the SEC no less) which is now pricing in extreme deflation and inflation at the same time, or, simply said, much more QE from the Chairman, record EUR Brent be damned. Oh, and with crude (in USD) back on track to surpass $110, we can't wait for the Department of Truth to tell us how February consumer confidence is literally off the charts.

Uh, we have all been assuming for a long time that ZH was taking over all market regulation across the planet from now on. The "wanking" SEC has to follow up on some questionable video downloads on pornhub.com.

The bond, real estate and stock market is the biggest heist job in history. The government saves the banks with free money from the POMO bond to cash pump- banks buy everything not nailed down- FED and politburo put a floor on asset values- banks recapitalize and pretend their assets, debt holdings have "dollar value."
All through taxpayer debt,wage and indentured servency obligations- courtesy of our representation in "democracy."
Seriously, imagine if banks could not only be saved, but could use this depression to "own assets, debt and the future " of the country. Everyone thinking they can get a foot in the door like JP Morgan did in the 30's.
Sick,sick,sick.
Asset values and commodities should be collapsing in price, but instead the control economy places hard floors on all prices except non-government labor costs. Oil price ramping encouraging price increases across all manufacturing and helping to create cost inflation and making these idiot economic models fit economist world views.

AAPL printed a new 52-week high earlier this morning, and James Altucher -- also this morning -- told the estimable Hery Blodget that the Dow is going to 20,000 within one year. Simply buy the dip -- and if there is none, buy anything.

There is one group that is taking it hard though: the older generation.

All of their investments are losers: CDs, bank accounts, SSTF, inflation is killing the value of old people's wealth. These people who couldn't stomach another downturn in stocks and who had been told their whole lives gold is a barberic relic, are eating cat food and not leaving their homes except to walk around the block once a day.

Yet their kids are coming over with cookies more than ever, because they have been unemployed for two years and they know ma and pa have their life insurance paid up.

Yes, but this class you speak of doesn't have their savings tied up in an asset class that is subject to a 20% to 50% correction unfolding rather quickly, of the kind that renders stop orders quite ineffectual.

In other words, they'd wisely rather not bet it on black 10 spins in a row, given the inevitable result.

When and not if the next inevitable big correction suddenly unfolds, take a long peek at who is relatively far better off.

If you want to say those who are maintaining discipline and remaining liquid in an obviously warped risk market appear to be suffering for it now, I'll agree, and this is always the case in bubble times (I'd argue we have a bigger equity bubble blowing right now than we had in 2007, but that's for another time). Check in on them, and see how they appear vs. those investing in equities with their own money after the bubble bursts.

It's all relative. Bernanke's put is no more guaranteed than Greenspan's was in 1999, or Bernanke's last one was in 2007.

What type of pullback do you want? You want stocks to pull back to DJ 7k? So you think the dollar will gain value, after the world has created tens of trillions of dollars out of thin air? Sorry mate, we are heading into a hyperinflation of the Fiat Ponzi, where there are no winners if you are playing the game.

Well, aside from the real hedge that is a barbaric relic that central banks hold for reasons of tradition and that isn't edible, I never said I wanted stocks to pull back (I only said it's inevitable) nor do I know how big a correction we're going to have, but what do you think is going to be the least worst dog in the show if you are insinuating that an equity market correction of the fast & quite nasty type is NOT coming?

Or have we reached what looks to be a "permanently high plateau" for real, at long last?

This is why Jeremy Siegel isn't only wrong (given that he mutilates data on equity returns historically, and doesn't even properly adjust for index rejiggering, incredibly inefficient tax consequences of 'equity investing' [for almost all participants] and survivorship bias), but dangerous. Equities are the biggest scam that fleeces the largest number of participants more frequently than any other asset class (including fiatski toilet paper).

Equity markets become illiquid traps during true corrections. An always present market maker is a myth, and you only have to look back to 2008 to see that, when stocks were selling off at literally 50% below stop loss order levels on certain days.

Equity markets are exactly like casinos. In the long run, the house always wins. For every Apple, there are 10 GMs. For every Buffett, there are 100,000 Lenny Dykstras.

What is the value of a dollar: It is whatever we want it to be, until it has no perceieved value at all, because it has no value.

What are the PTB, these Scull and Bones Masters of the Universe trying to manifest? A New World Order. They are bringing in the destruction of the Fiat Ponzi. Some know the drill, some are wishful economists. Bernanke has to be in the know. He and the other Masters will hyperinflate the currency until you do not recognize the world you live in.

I understand you contemp of equity. But what about bonds? Is that not a bubble? And considering the whole game is played with fiat? The bubble lies at the crux of the system. The crux is fiat. When fiat breaks, there will be no place to stay.

Everything you just described is denominated in the world's reserve currency.

If you want to argue that the USD will cease being so, that's a different argument.

Am I fan of the USD? Hardly. Do I think it's value is too high relative to most other fiat currencies? Hardly. Is the GBP, the euro, the AUD a better value? Hardly.

Bonds and equities are both priced in fiat. So are commodities.

As I mentioned above, the contemptable barbaric relic that is inedible but so happened to maintain more a semblance of purchasing power for hundreds of years now and is held by central banks due to 'tradition' is not in our discussion (that I know of), and allowing for it to be accounted for changes all dynamics, but I am fairly confident that there'd be quite a show of governmental interventionism should citizens of the the world's nation-states lose faith in their currencies en masse and try to circumvent the fractional reserve banking system (which allows for the tracking, tabbing and extraction of the debt that keeps the very fractional reserve banking-dependant economy alive).

I believe Rickards and many others are correct in claiming the great fiat debasement race is on, so will the winners of that race be the losers, or.....?

It's all relative, and relativity is going to show great complexities.

TIS, I respectfully disagree. The bubble is in fiat and in Government bonds and notes. Does not mean stocks are not overvalued, but then it's all relative, and of course subject to massive manipulation in all its forms.

If there is a bubble in fiat, then there necessarily has to be a bubble in anything measured by that same fiat.

Bonds are in a bubble. But equities behave far differently and are far more volatile in a sell-off (especially given the leverage baked into equity markets).

There is no guaranteed 'recoupment' period for stocks upon a maturity date.

Unless one is literally arguing that the U.S. will de jure default on its bonds, losses in equities can run to 100% in a relatively short period of time (actually, with margin, losses can run multitudes higher than 100%).

I don't like treasuries, but stocks pose a far riskier option on a relative basis. There won't even be an equity market in the U.S. along any conventional norms if the U.S. Government were to de jure default on its debt.